The
complex was a tall, imposing building bristling with guards and
motion detection devices. It was plain to see that this structure
held something of worth- and that something was what the client
wanted. A swift shadow whistled past the guard stations, staying in
the shadows of the walls. It crept towards a tower door, and with a
slight pause, waved its hand in front of a motion tracker. Alarms
blared and sirens screamed as the distraction proved effective. In
the confusion, the shadowy figure slinked off in the direction of
another door.

She
fiddled with the wiring of a keypad, and with a spark of electricity,
the door slid open. The woman walked in and keyed the door shut
behind her. The fools! This job was pretty pathetic from what she had
done so far. She toyed with a small pad on her wrist for a moment,
and an invisible field of electromagnetic energy was deployed around
her body. She could now walk at will without setting off any motion
detectors or being seen in any security cameras. Her hands wrapped
around the pistols strapped to her legs. Checking the ammunition in
them and making sure they were activated, she set off on a brisk
pace.

The
woman had hardly walked at all before she heard the sound of armored
guards. The trio of bulky soldiers tromped down a long
corridor. They wouldn't remember what happened next.

"Nighty-night,
boys!" The woman dropped from above and bashed the three of them to
the floor. She dispatched them all with quick strikes in their necks
and left them unconscious on the ground.

In
the security control room, several people were sharing confused looks
as a dazed guard told them what had happened.

"It-
it was out of nowhere, just hit us l-like a load of bricks! We just
hit the floor!" The chief of security, a tall, tubby man, scratched
his bald scalp.

"Got
past the towers… snuck inside… nearly killed three armored
guards… AND YOU STILL HAVEN'T FOUND THE PERPETRATOR?!?" He
quivered with rage, his belly shaking with every syllable. A young
man at a terminal shot up.

"S-sir!
We've tracked a cloaking device making rounds through Level B. It's
heading towards the vault!" The chief whirled upon him and bowled
him over as he fought to the terminal. Sure enough, something was
leaving a trail of deactivated camera systems.

"Send
troopers down there on the double, and fire on sight!" A team of
infantrymen loaded their plasma rifles and donned their thick sets of
armor. The chief listened to them tromp out the door as he thought to
himself. Wait… nobody could have gotten through the
security here alone… unless… NO! It couldn't be! His eyes
strayed to a terminal, where a woman donned in a cloaking suit and
several other gadgets was fiddling with something on her wrist. It's
HER!It's Tenshi! Damn it, this isn't good!

Tenshi,
the mercenary-for-hire and expert thief, was busy working with her
cloaking control.

"Stupid
piece of crap… it malfunctions every time…" She noticed a
camera lens centering and focusing on her face. "Crap!" She
pistol-whipped the machine and ran. The door to the vault loomed in
front of her, impossible to cut through in such a short amount of
time. She plugged several wires from the terminal on her back into a
port near the door and began working. She uploaded a virus from her
databank into the door's computer and set it to destroying the
system.

A
beam seared by her, burning a hole in the wall. Several armored
troopers were bearing down on her, firing with their rifles. She shot
one of them through the faceplate with her pistol before taking out
both of her guns and firing precise shots into the group. Damn…
I wasn't supposed to kill anyone on this job, but it looks like
I'll have to break a few rules. After three fell, the rest
scattered and took cover. A sonic grenade flew from a gauntleted
hand, bouncing to rest near Tenshi. Her suit went into automatic
support and a thick barrier sealed over her ears as the grenade
detonated, releasing a sonic boom. The blast sent her flying onto the
door and knocked the wires from her terminal loose. She hurled
several frag grenades into the hallway, and turned as they detonated
in smoke and flame. The door dinged open as she gathered the
fallen cables up. Tenshi jumped inside and typed commands into the
lock, sealing the door behind her.

A
giant supercomputer rested in the middle of the room, where Tenshi
got to work downloading the information she needed from the
databanks. She heard a dull thudding on the thick doors as the guards
tried to bash their way in.

"Sorry,
gentlemen, but it takes two to tango. I've got a plane to catch."
The door burst open and guns flooded the room with plasma bursts.
Tenshi, hovering above them, unloaded hell from her pistols into the
group. The men ran for cover again, firing as well as they could on
the flying prey. Her heels dug into a faceplate, shattering it as she
fell from above. She shot upward in a burst of speed and crashed
through a ceiling vent, leaving a team of guards to stare at their
goodbye present- a wad of C4 stuck to the computer.

The
chief of security roared in anger as the vault's cameras and
listening systems turned to static a moment after they were consumed
in flame.

Tenshi
knocked on the tall, ornate oak door. It opened to reveal a muscular
man in a dark suit.

"Oh,
Mistress Josei! Please, come in!" He opened the door wide and
gestured for her to enter.

"Thank
you, Stewart. I'll tell your boss to give a raise to the bodyguards
that treat women civilly." The man bowed and closed the door.

Tenshi
strode up the stairs of a lovely and decorated mansion hall. She
paused for a moment to admire the paintings that covered the walls.
Mr. Cleese always had a good eye for art; she had known him for
years. He was one of her most common, and best paying, clients. Mr.
Cleese's office rested at the top of the stairs. She knocked and
entered the well-lit room.

"Ah,
Ms. Tenshi. That was done in record time. Barely six hours since you
left this room, if I am correct? Well, no matter. You are still the
best of the best." The young Mr. Cleese sat in his leather chair
and turned to face Tenshi.

"Well,
you always were a stickler for proficiency. You know that you're on
my list of top clients- it's my duty to deliver as quick as
possible." She flipped out a small chit and placed it in a slot on
his desk. A large monitor turned on and proceeded to run through
various files, each labeled CONFIDENTIAL at the top.

"Yes,
yes. All very good. Thank you for your continued loyalty, Tenshi. I
trust that you caused some damage?"

"A
little." She grinned upon thinking what that fat security officer's
face would have looked like when he saw the explosives she had
rigged.

"Your
payment is being wired to your account as we speak. Two million
credits, and not a single credit less." The man smiled and stared
at the data running down the screen.

"You
are most welcome. The next time you need something stolen or a
mercenary for hire, you know who to call." She strode from the room
and shut the door behind her.

Josei
Kaze, better known to some as the skilled mercenary Tenshi, lives in
her mansion in Izumo, Japan Prime. Kaze enjoys painting, eating out,
practicing jujutsu, and tinkering with her gadgets. She is extremely
good in the line of thievery, bounty retrieval, and protection, and
her current occupation is just that- professional thief, bounty
hunter, and mercenary. As Ms. Josei Kaze, she's an investor and
Vice President in a large-profit organization that sells electronic
equipment and bionic machinery. As Tenshi, she is the cream of the
crop in the Japan Prime Underground. She adds to her current wealth
with her "special skills" and spends much of her money building
new things to further improve her quota. This, of course, is her
story.

Kaze
woke up from her much-needed nap and stretched. She picked up her
datapad that was lying next to her bed and tapped on it a few times.

"What
to do today… let's see. Tae Bo practice… work on Jujutsu…
test new pistols in the shooting range… and I have an appointment
with the Lord Himitsu at 3:00. Ugh. Well, if he pays, I'll work."
She shut down the pad and climbed out of bed to start her daily
routine.

Dressed
in a jean ensemble, Kaze checked that the ammo in her new set of
pistols was charged. She slid them into the holsters under her jacket
and got in her car.

The
silver-colored car hummed to a stop in front of a packed sushi bar. A
sushi bar? This guy's supposed to be loaded, and he wants to
meet at a sushi bar? She stepped out of her car and locked it.
The bar was definitely popular- there was only one empty seat. A
well-dressed man sitting next to the empty one gestured for her to
come over. She sat next to him and took a plate of fish passing by on
the conveyor belt.

"Mistress
Tenshi, I presume? Thank you for coming to see me. I have a bit of a
problem, and I was wondering if you could help me out. You see, I
have a client that knows a great deal of information about one of my
secret projects. He designed most of it. This project is extremely
necessary to the government of Japan Prime, and several other
countries know it. If they get their hands on his brain, they could
create the same thing that we are- and faster. If we lost him, the
development would be slowed down dramatically."

He
paused as Tenshi cleared her throat.

"So
what is this project? What is so important that you keep the plans
sealed in some guy's head instead of on paper?"

Himitsu
seemed surprised by the question, but he whispered quietly,

"A
superweapon." Tenshi choked.

"Sorry.
I thought I heard you say something about a superweapon."

"I
did. We call it Project Nexus, and without it, Japan Prime will be
destroyed." He looked grim.

"So
how will Japan be destroyed? Even if some war or apocalypse wasted
the country, America and Britain will help us. They're two of the
strongest nations on the planet."

Himitsu
waited a second to answer.

"Japan
Prime is on the brink of war. America and France, and all the other
countries that are our allies, couldn't help us if they knew about
it. This superweapon isn't the only one. As I told you before,
other countries against us are already dabbling in the idea of
creating a machine so powerful it could wipe out entire sections of
the planet. We need to finish ours before they do theirs. Their
weapons are created to destroy, and the one in production in our
country is being made to both protect our people and fight the
others. America doesn't know any of this. Few of our allies do.
Those that are in the know have already pulled out. Even if any of
them made a move, they would be incinerated before their development
teams could create something this huge." Tenshi tipped a bottle of
sake over her lips and drank as heavily as she could. "Tenshi. Our
wars will no longer fight with armies. This is the beginning of a new
era- our wars will be fought with superweapons." Tenshi's hand
dropped to the table with the bottle in it.

"I
hate Mondays."

Himitsu
grinned.

"So
it's a deal?" She stopped him.

"How
much?" He fumbled around with his wallet.

"Three
hundred million credits will be wired to your account upon completion
of a three-week period in which you will watch, supervise, and
protect our researcher. He'll be staying in your house. If you
agree, he'll probably be there by the time you get home." The
sake bottle tipped up again. Three hundred million… three
hundred million credits… just keep thinking about all of the zeros
in that number… She groaned.

"You've
got a deal. So, what's this mystery man's name?"

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